No one really wins...

[hippybngstockng]

Okay. This is an at-my-wits-end post, pass by if you're having a good day. You were warned.

So I don't bring up poop on here for the same damn reason most of us try not to, but I am getting to the point where I just can't take it anymore. I've tried just about everything I can think of to get K to start using the potty, but the long and short of it is that he seriously hates the whole process because his digestion and diet have him constantly either constipated or having the runs. He's either doomed to spend eternity on the loo, or he's all backed up and uncomfortable. It sucks, and believe me when I say that I try everything I can to stay ahead of his diet whenever possible. That's the thing. It's not really possible. He's so completely intractable when it comes to food, and he's crafty at avoiding eating things. He's figured out that he can feed stuff to my mom's dog and make people think he ate it. Thankfully we don't live with her anymore. Anyway, other than putting the kitchen in complete lockdown I am at a loss about how to make him eat only things that will help. Mostly I rely on abundant amounts of fiber containing things he does like, lots of water, and he takes a stool softener pretty much constantly now because it just works better than letting everything back up for one big painful explosion.

So now that you know that massive plop of stuff you probably never wanted to know about my son, please now consider the butt rash one might have sometimes when one has to live in a near-constant state of dirty diaper. This is K's life these days... It brings up issues around his wanting to use the toilet or let anyone near him when he's sore, so everything I've tried that seems to be working goes into an immediate state of failure when we reach a state of butt rash. I've brought this to the attention of just about anyone who will listen in the professional world of people who are supposed to be helping me, and they've been seriously unhelpful. None of their suggestions ever fall under the realm of something I haven't already tried, three or four times, and when they're not there's often some logical reason I can see why K is going to shoot their suggestion down with a nice round of butt rash.

In the immediate term I'm losing my ability to make it through the changes without getting to be an emotional wreck. He screams, he kicks his feet against the toilet, screams, throws things, screams louder, and if I dare leave the room he will fill the toilet with an entire roll of toilet paper if I was silly enough to leave one in his grasp. He also chews paper constantly, all kinds, did I forget to mention that? I imagine with the quantities he's been into lately it's likely contributing to the issue. It seems like there's no end to this cycle, and tonight I even found myself reaching for my headphones and my mp3 player, accepting the fact that I was drowning out my own child's screams. I felt like a monster. I have to stay with it though because if I don't he might never be potty trained.

The most painful part of it is when it's over so much of the time he says thank you, and will hug you. He knows it's not your fault the butt wipes hurt. It kills me, all of it. It's such a low low moment every time, even at the end, simply because I end up feeling so unworthy of it.

In the long term I don't know how much more of this I can take. The screaming alone is too much, don't even get me started on the rest of the issues behind it all, there's just too much I can say about it that you totally don't want to hear. I'm so tired of not getting the help I ask for, and not getting anywhere without it stepping straight back again. It's to the point where I want to save every shit stained diaper and fucking MAIL IT to Steven Harper with my extra 100 bucks per month for "whatever" child related expense. Thanks for nothing assmunch.

I don't really want any sympathy, I really just want the magical solution to hit me or someone in a ten foot radius with a bolt of inspiration that will break through it. I know this life is mine and there's no getting around it, so don't feel sorry for me. It's just poop, and if I have to wear headphones then I guess I will have to come to grips with it like I've come to grips with everything else. I just can't imagine K doing this for the rest of his life. I don't want to, but I have to sometimes because it seems like if this doesn't change it will be the way of things. It feels like it'll be this one thing that will hold him back and keep him here with us and make him feel like less a person for the rest of time. I can't handle that idea at all. He's such a smart amazing wonderful boy in so many other ways, he deserves to believe it. Kids are cruel and I can only imagine what first grade is going to be like for him if he's still wearing diapers, which at this rate he will be. I need a miracle solution. I need a solution that takes every previous suggestion and book and pamphlet of solutions and throws it on the fire and toasts marshmallows over it. If you know one that can't be trumped by anything I mention above, please do share. I might've tried it, but hey, I like to try things again with variations too...

Comments

[butterflymama3.livejournal.com]

I wish that I did have the magical solution for you. *hugs*, not that that really helps but I'm at a total loss here.

[inanna.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

i know much of what you are dealing with lokheed has gone through, too. It sounds so familiar. i think his son finally got out of pull-ups within the past 18-24 months (he is 13).

The thing that made me catch my breath was him eating paper. Ben did this same thing... and ended up with an impacted bowel.. the ER was able to remove the impaction.. eventually. i know they have to keep ALL paper including TP locked up and when Ben gets paper, it is fully supervised.

If you want to talk/vent/cry next time you see me online, i am here for you *hugs*

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I remember vividly the chill that went through me when I read that it was paper that put Ben in the hospital. I've been trying to be vigilant about the paper whenever possible, but he still gets into it at every little opportunity. He's slowly destroying all his books. I am thankful that he seems to only chew it, since he will always give me what is in his mouth and I find other ones I must've missed him getting dried up in places in his room or the living room. It is getting to the point where I will indeed have to lock up every item of paper there is around here, or somehow break through to him about how dangerous it. I've been telling him continuously since Ben that if he keeps it up it might make his tummy sick. Mostly it's just made him sneakier about it. *sighs*

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I have often thought that Alex and K are having very similar progressions in many ways. K is more verbal these days, but still struggling with it to a large extent, largely because the map to the comprehension of certain things is still not there yet. Similarly he gets the peeing part of the potty, and will go do that quite often without prompting, but if he's constipated he reverts to a similar situation you describe with Christopher- Horrible bad mood swings until the explosion happens, and then all good until the next round of constipation. He refuses the potty even for peeing if it gets real bad.

I do think he will get it eventually, but it feels like it will only happen when the food thing finally evens out and that is still not an easy one for him. He's very resistant to new foods, even things that seem like fabulous treats. I am definitely going to try the chocolate chip muffin idea again though, since I haven't in a while, and he's become more positive about chocolate chip things. Before they were alien, like anything else with lumps in it! :) It had to be chocolate bar or nothing. Cookies had to be oreo-style or they were not cookies. He's at least to the point where he will try a new thing every now and then without screaming.

I've done some of the other things you describe too, and we definitely have to keep the whole potty thing as low key as we can or it throws him into traumatic tantrum territory easily. The problem starts when the poop starts happening and he's straining to hold it in, if we approach him at that time it's tantrum by default. I feel like we've been trying to train him forever now (it has kinda been 3 years, eeegads), and it's just so frustrating not being able to make him understand how much better he would feel if he wouldn't hold it so long. I fear he's ended up with that rectum problem that kids get when they end up regularly pushing out one massive huge load at once instead of lots of little ones. Sometimes the size of the things that have emerged from those days of holding it in is so scary... Well I don't have to tell you, I'm sure. But the fact that it causes so much leakage the rest of the time has him completely convinced that wearing diapers is just the way of things, and that underwear is evil since it gets wet and sticky if anything happens.

And I really wish we lived closer too... I wanted to respond to your stuff about how it felt having to argue with Chris the last few days, since I've been in a similar sad-making place (though in the totally non-verbally way), and I was having such a hard time with it too... In the end I couldn't come up with a comment that felt like it wasn't just going to bum you out more, but that's just because of my head-space the last couple days. I really appreciate your help and your words more than you know, and reading about you and your kids definitely makes me feel much less alone. *hugsyoutight*

Bet he hates Desitin, too.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Ah, man. Poor kid. It'll click, one of these days.

I wonder if this is sort of like anorexia in teenagers. Something that the kid can CONTROL, and therefore does.

Everybody wants to be empowered. We just find weird ways of getting there.

Re: Bet he hates Desitin, too.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Indeed I think it is about control, and yeah, desitin usually doesn't do the butt rash any good since we get SERIOUS butt rash at the drop of a hat... We've been using some stuff I can only get at hospital pharmacies.

[storychick.livejournal.com]

Wish I had advice. I'm guessing you've tried this, but suppositories when he's backed up? I dont know. Screaming at professionals some more?

Wish I knew how to help. Its definitely not fun when they are screaming like that. :(

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I've considered taping him screaming and playing it for the professionals who keep not helping me. The temptation to then borrow a Hummer and show up with an amplifier on the parliament's doorstep to play it continuously until I am arrested is strong sometimes.

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

Okay - I don't know what you've tried, but I do have a suggestion for the butt rash - LB had horrid, open sores and weeping butt rash - I grok.

Canus Li'l Goat's Milk (pretty much your standard 40% zinc oxide cream, but also has goat's milk in it) worked *WONDERS* for him. When Desitin and Penetin and the rest of them didn't do squat, this would take him from open sores to closed to healing, usually within roughly 36 hours. The difference between bedtime and the following morning was often enough to make it possible to wipe him without him screaming. Don't ask me why it is, but as far as I could tell, the only difference was the goat's milk. I stopped questioning it, and just went with it - it worked. Maybe if K's not in active pain ever time he needs to go (at least from the rash), it'll help break some of that feedback loop of toilet avoidance.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this! I will absolutely give that a shot, since I'm willing to bet it's cheaper than the Calmoseptine we've been having to buy at the hospital pharmacy. It's $12 a tube and we seem to go through one every couple weeks since they're not that big.

And indeed, weeks when he's not having so much butt rash he's actually pretty good at going on the potty, even without prompting sometimes.

[the-nita.livejournal.com]

Yup - it's about $5 for a jar (I think the jar's around 350ml, but it's been a while). I'm crossing my fingers for you - it really worked well for us.

*hugs*

[ronelyn.livejournal.com]

I know you said you didn't want sympathy, but how could I NOT? You guys should be proud of sticking with it. There are plenty who wouldn't, and haven't. Y'all do good. Could be gooderer? Always possible, even for a Dalai Lama. But "good" is what counts.

[ajpurkiss.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm suggestions..... hmmmmmmm....

The trick that has worked with us is to let the kids run round butt naked in the summer months (K is older so I guess it would be harder). I had a fear that Mac would take a while but the last few days she has has a 90% success rate. The main problem is getting her to go when she wakes up dry - just like us she wakes up sleepy/grumpy and the last thing she wants to do is sit on the pot. We make a big celebration of it when she is successful - she will even make a point of telling us she has gone and don't make a fuss when she misses (once or twice she has said sorry for not making it)


Do you think it would help if he saw other kids go to bathroom/to the pot to go potty?



There is always just sitting him on the toliet for the whole day - that supposidly worked for C.

Probably not that useful I guess.... If it would help though I am sure I can bring the girls over and when Little M goes we can make a noise like we always do and maybe K will get the hint ?

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Philip didn't start pooping in the toilet until April (nearly seven). And before that (once he started peeing in the toilet regularly) we stopped putting him in diapers because he'd just take them off to poop on the floor anyhow. So the first step was not pooping in his pants... but it meant a lot of cleaning the floor. He'd always hold it until home or occasionally grandma's house, though.

So back to April: we were going to visit my cousin, and stay in a hotel, and I was very worried about having to clean floors. But apparently the lack of the usual places to poop (mostly his bedroom, sometimes the hallway and bathroom) meant he actually pooped in the toilet there. He spontaneously figured it out on his own. And mroe amazingly yet, he kept doing it once we got home.

I can't say how good a solution it is, but if he's peeing in the toilet OK, maybe you can experiment with no diapers?

I also really love the baby bottom balm from Naturally Luxe. It comes in a tube like a giant chapstick, so it just swipes on, no rubbing. 1. it seems to stop incipient rashes before they get going and 2. makes wiping easier, because there's a barrier that the poop doesn't really stick to. I don't know if you can find something similar and just keep putting it on frequently and if it would help or not.

Philip doens't chew paper, he chews carpet lint. But he doesn't swallow it -- do you know if K just wants the oral stimulation (and maybe you could find a substitute) or if he's actually eating the paper? We've been giving P other things he can chew when stressed out, and it helps.